A single sub-microscopic, infectious, non-living, parasitic agent has tethered the very fabric of our society and squeezed the energy out of the world’s best scientists by keeping everyone on their toes by mutating and taking disingenuous forms like a macabre contortionist on steroids during the last couple of months. Now for some gyaan. Interestingly, it is proposed that this ‘covid-19,’ as we fondly call it, is a ‘non-living thing’ that is categorized as a virus and technically, viruses require a host cell to survive long-term - for energy and to reproduce quite unlike the common bacteria which are single-celled, living organisms that have a cell wall and all the components necessary to survive and reproduce (although some may derive energy from other sources). By numbers, if all the 1 × 10³¹ viruses on Earth were laid end to end, they would stretch for 100 million light years. a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year, which is 9.4607 × 10¹² km (nearly 6 million million miles)... and all it took was just one tiniest of tiny, spiky thing to bring the Earth to a standstill (!)

Further bringing Microbiology in numbers into context to muddle a bit more with our grey, there are 100 million times as many bacteria in the oceans (13 × 10²⁸) as there are stars in the known universe. The rate of viral infection in the oceans stands at 1 × 10²³ infections per second and these infections remove 20–40% of all bacterial cells each day. Moving onto dry land, the number of microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil (1 × 10⁹) is the same as the number of humans currently living in Africa. Even more amazingly, dental plaque is so densely packed that a gram will contain approximately 1 × 10¹¹ bacteria, roughly the same number of humans that have ever lived. Not quite so densely packed but impressive all the same, the bacteria present in the average human gut weigh about 1 kilogram, and a human adult will excrete their own weight in faecal bacteria each year. The number of genes contained within this gut flora outnumbers that contained within our own genome 150-fold; even in our genome, 8% of the DNA is derived from remnants of viral genomes.

Perhaps the scariest numbers in microbiology relate to pathogenic microorganisms. Worldwide, 16 million people die from infectious disease every year, while it may be noted that many of these deaths are preventable. Approximately one in every 12 individuals or 500 million people worldwide, is living with chronic viral hepatitis, and the estimated number of new chlamydial infections per year is approximately 50 million, more than the population of South Korea. The bacterium Clostridium botulinum produces a toxin so potent that 3 grams would be enough to kill the population of the United Kingdom and 400 grams would kill everyone on the planet.

In total, there are ∼1,400 known species of human pathogens (including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and helminths), and although this may seem like a large number, human pathogens account for much less than 1% of the total number of microbial species on the planet. On this point, ignoring questions about what actually constitutes a species, estimates for the total number of microbial species vary wildly, from as low as 120,000 to tens of millions and higher. Part of the reason for this large range is that we have only sequenced 1 × 10⁻²²% of the total DNA on Earth (although the Earth Microbiome Project should improve this dramatically to 1 × 10⁻²⁰% in the next 3 years). This means that the fraction of microbial diversity that we have sampled to date is effectively zero, a nice abstract entity to end on... and to realize that popular brands of disinfectants and sanitizers claim to kill “99.9%” of germs is nothing short of a joke that you can laugh off in leisure or visualize a trillion germs having a good laugh at you as you try to squeeze the last drop of living hell out of the plastic bottle of your favourite hand sanitizer.

But… despite the terror and horror obtruded, the lifeless Spikey seems to have made some long-pending changes that seemed impossible by other more living being for long. Take for instance, the ways we tried to promote a ‘swachh Bharat’ – except for pictures of dirty brooms in the hands of our elected representatives sweeping clean roads with picture perfect smile to be featured preferably on the front page or at least in some remote corner above an obituary in page 3, there was nothing much of ‘swachh’ that we got to see with people still trying to clean up walls and sidewalks with their uncontrollable need to urinate and those who had to chew, spew and spit their paan or that quickly churned sputum orchestrated with the most beastly grunt that can give the wildest, filthiest pig a run for its money – almost anywhere, everywhere and at any time. Then comes spikey… and all of a sudden, through conscience or for the fear of the fine and penalty or the policeman’s lathi marking its presence in the rear, zippers and mouths seem to have gotten magically fastened. And suddenly, as though magical, no more spitting, no more urinating, no more stench and no more spray painting of human excreta emitted through any outlet at every (un)imaginable space. Not just a ‘swachh Bharat’ but a ‘swachh Earth’ it seemed to have become with better civic responsibility.

With lockdowns, containment zones, self-isolations and quarantining happening at every nook and corner of Earth, there were lesser vehicles, lesser industrial effluence and thus, lesser emission. The skies became clearer, the water became purer and the guys who said that Pluto was not a planet (?!), also said that the long abused ozone layer was now self-healing. People were beginning to sight more wildlife trotting concrete jungles – open and free – as we stayed caged in the (dis)comforts of our urban spaces staring at artificial landscapes.

Politicians and religious leaders exposed their true colours distancing themselves from people when they could have seized this opportunity to be close with the masses or perhaps the ‘aam admi’ began seeing through their pretentious and hippocratic cloak. With no religious institution to visit or coffer to fill, savings seem to be better and disposable income higher as humanity raised when people began to see the suffering of those around and realized the true meaning of giving to those in need who were near.

Big, fat Indian weddings were replaced with simpler and more meaningful weddings; eating outside reduced as people turned to eating more delicious and healthier home-made food; demand for locally-grown produce rose as packaged corporate food and consumables started to rot in the boxes they came in – with lesser exports, people started to see and taste first class food which otherwise our farmers and fishermen found fit to be served only for their unseen consumers overseas.      

In the absence of vaccines and a trustable cure available from allopathy, homeopathy or sabapathy, people seemed to rely on eating healthy and staying fit to build their immunity – a wiser choice perhaps that no ‘Fit India’ campaign could achieve so far.

Corona seems to be taking the blame too – like a seasoned wife or a ‘good’ husband, people have found an easy way out to blame the poor spikey for everything. Why did the start-up (that never took off) fail? Corona! Why did the politician not win the election? Corona! Why did the financial policies get laughed at? Corona! Why did economies fail? Corona! Why did the cat meow? Corona! Why did the maid try to fly on the broom? Yes, of course, Corona! After all, everyone knows the poor non-living thing will dare not utter a word in defence (just like the ‘good’ husband.)

In the kingdom of education, for years I have been witnessing how the Teacher has been pleading with the student to attempt a teeny-weeny bit of self-studying – the proposal in an attempt to put the Greek model into action where the interest and motivation to study must be an intrinsic factor that must raise the much preferred enthusiasm and curiosity to know, understand and grow which makes learning a process continuum. Never happened. Higher education bodies have been asking Teachers who thought that teaching was all about giving uninterrupted lectures at a ring of a bell from pulpits of power, dumping buckets of undigested curd from their head to the other(s) – without passing through either - and pulling out notes from their files like the legendary Mary Poppins in a desperate attempt to compensate their lack of being able to make education interesting at the end of the day (wonder why…); now, not by choice or chance, people must give up these stunts and try being a facilitator, a trainer instead. With our new friend spikey coming into the picture, automatically there is a paradigm shift; most online teaching is about facilitating and most self-motivated learning from home is research-based and we get to see knowledge being controlled in classes more than behaviour. Finally higher education bodies seem to have achieved this great feat through spikey – something that they have not been able to despite diplomatic pleading so far. Viola!

With small scale industries whose businesses run on fundamentally following the economic advice of optimal utilization of available resources quite sincerely by utilizing not just their raw materials yet also their human resources to its maximum and beyond – at times even beyond what the watchful eyes of justice can see – in workhouses and behind closed shutters where bonded and child labourers remained oppressed by clout and by crooks. Enter spikey; shutters were up and the roads wide open for many of the migrant labourers and their families to return home – liberated and free.   

Talking about bonded labourers, family bonds seem to have been strengthened with forced cabining and confinement; broken families got a chance to come together and couples who had decided to part ways have got a second chance to rethink or affirm their decision with conviction. If not for spikey, wouldn’t we have been just one more face in the crowd watching the world pass by for reasons no one had time to stop or think – for what? And why?

With that left for reflection for later, right now, Bon Jovi’s song buzzes across my head as I hum my version (in brackets) behind my mask…

‘’This ain't a (virus) for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for the faith-departed
I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice
When I shout it out loud

It's my life…
It's now or never
(this lockdown can’t go on) forever
I just want to live while I'm alive

My heart is like an open highway
Like (spikey) said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
It's my life.”